Using a climate simulation with greater resolution than conventional models, researchers have found that tropical cyclone clouds will grow taller in a warmer world. This could explain the increased intensity of storms predicted by this and other models.
Yohei Yamada of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Yokohama and his colleagues used a prototype global cloud-system-resolving model with 14-kilometre resolution. They simulated spring-to-autumn cyclone activity for climate conditions in 2004 and those in which carbon dioxide concentration is twice the present level. They predict that, although storm clouds will heighten, global storm frequency will decrease by 40% by 2100, which is consistent with previous findings.
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Climate change: Fewer, taller, fiercer. Nature 464, 1107 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4641107c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4641107c
